[31] N*E*R*D featuring Lee Harvey and Vita, ‘Lapdance’

No One Ever Really Dies. They should be called N*O*E*R*D, shouldn’t they? Unless they’re spelling it Noone Ever Really Dies, in which case it’s a) nonsense and b) a poorly worded threat to the blameless Herman’s Hermits singer. Actually, I think it’s meant to be No-one, but point stands. Still, far be it from Pharrell Williams to be a berk. Scratch that – far be it from early 2000s Pharrell Williams to be a berk. Just off the back of Kelis’s immense debut Kaleidoscope and other scorching Neptunes productions, he and Chad Hugo and other mucker Shay Haley had plenty of leeway to make the pretty self-indulgent hip hop/rock/R&B hybrid In Search Of…, and it worked. Lead track ‘Lapdance’ is seedy as it should be, aggressive and – surprisingly rare quality, this – genuinely thrilling. Then they decided to re-record In Search Of… with a propah rawk band and it turned into Limp Bizkit. That’s one fine line. The original rock-facsimile just packed the greater punch.

Junior says: “It’s crazy.” Mind you, she barely heard it, what with me using the one-two combo of coughing and putting my hands over her ears for every “motherf***er” and “n****r”. I think she caught a beat at the end of the ninth bar.
Best bit: The intro. Croaking quasi-guitar and dirty dawgs.